What if all the colours disappeared tomorrow?

clarence

clarence

ダメ
Local time
9:12 AM
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
977
Location
Singapore
View My Gallery
A thought came to me, and I would like to hear your responses.

What if you woke up tomorrow and found that you could no longer see in colour? I do not mean colour blindness; I mean seeing in total monochrome.

I do not know if this medical condition exists, and it would be helpful if someone could tell me more.

Ever since taking up black and white photography, I've been looking at the world more in terms of tonal contrasts than in hue. To be honest, I wouldn't really mind if I could not see in colour again. The first thing I'd do is sell my stocks of Fuji slide film.

Clarence
 
More than my heart would break, my psyche would be very much at sea until it found equilibrium.

There are so many things that color gives us emotionally and practically. I would be mostly disturbed over the loss of the practical side.

We humans take a lot of cues from color. There are the obvious things like signange and traffic lights. Then there are the cues we get from other humans and nature. The redness in someones face as they react to you or a situation. The color in your lover's face. The loss of color of someone slipping into shock. The red hour glass on a spider's back. Was that red or yellow next to black on the snake that just bit you?

Save monochrome for artistic exploration. Sell us your slide film.
 
We are all born color-blind, they say:

http://www.drgreene.com/21_601.html

We humans are all born colorblind! The cones don't begin functioning until a baby is about 4 months old. At that time the baby undergoes a gradual transformation that is as remarkable as the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy leaves the black-and-white world of Kansas for the brilliant colors of Oz. About one out of 40,000 babies never develops cones, seeing only in black-and-white throughout life. This is called achromatopsia, or rod-monochromatic colorblindness.
Click to expand...

I recall reading once that there is a single family, living on the Isle of Man in the UK, whose members are actually monochromatic. Other than that, people and other primates seem to have color vision, which is otherwise quite rare among mammals.

I am color-blind and I've got it bad, which means I can't be trusted to adjust a TV, a monitor calibration tool is useless to me, and I might eat food that is undercooked or has gone bad without knowing it (assuming it does not smell bad too). I have never seen a rainbow in real life; I can see photos of rainbows (which is how I know the colors in most photographs are not 'really accurate') so I know what they're supposed to look like, but I've never seen one for real.

On the other hand, I tend to use light, shadow, and texture to distinguish between objects, instead of color. When I was introduced to the theory of camoflage in the military, I thought it was some kind of hoax - oh, we're supposed to pretend we can't see those guys over there hunkering down in the weeds? I can usually see them, camoflage doesn't work on me. I see well at night, I see movement easily, so I was a good hunter when I used to hunt.

Enjoy your colors - I can 'see' most of them, even if I can't identify them - but they just don't mean as much to me as they do to you and most others. I am happy with shades of gray; I get by quite well.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
I dream in black & white. I'd like to continue to wake up to color.
 
I'd find it a little disturbing. In terms of b&w photography there would be no problem, as you would see your photo as it would appear in print, and I guess you would have an advantage.

I would hate it, though. I love to shoot black and white film because I have never found colour photo's to appear as interesting. Colour, in reality is far too interesting. A festival, for example, or an art gallery, or a Van Gogh, would appear very dull indeed.


Not to go OT, but rather on topic. If you could no longer see colours physically, would you still be able to picture them mentally (and have dreams in colour, in your sleep - the flip side to a previous comment).

To borrow directly from the theories of the veil of perception, and one philosopher's reasoning for mind altering drugs to enhance vision; if you had lost the ability to 'see' colour, and then took certain drugs, would you then suddenly see colour again? The effect coming from your mind, not your eyes.


That again questions your question. Is it the eyes that lack the capability to register colour, or the mind to translate the rays of light into more than a grey tone?
 
I live in a beautiful place. In the spring and summer, it would be tragic not to have color.

If I lived in LA full time, maybe then I would not care for my color sight.
 
We don't see in ultraviolet or infrared ranges. Do we 'miss' those colors? After all, having never seen them, we have no idea what they look like. We can only see images recorded using those ranges, and then translated down to the visible light spectrum.

My point - you can't miss what you never had. I don't 'miss' rainbows, never having seen one.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
Being one of the three major components of wine tasting and the presentation of food, I would miss it for that. But being a b&w guy (even though I have made a number of good photos in colour), I think it would help develop my photographic skills. And it would probably enhance development of new monocrhome films & papers.
 
Perhaps I should make it clearer: Of course I don't want to lose my colour perception. If I did, my life would certainly be inconvenienced by it. Aside from the practical considerations, however, the most beautiful girl in the world would be no less stunning in monochrome. My perception of visual reality is significantly affected by my aesthetic eye, and because my aesthetic eye focuses on tones rather than colour, it wouldn't be a great loss for me if I couldn't see in colour anymore. I already ignore much of that in the world which is beautiful to everyone else because of colour. So you could say that I've already lost it, to some extent.

If you don't believe me, that's fine. It probably means that colour is precious to you. There's no problem with that and I hope you'll continue to be able to see the world that way.

By the way, I sold off all my 35mm slide film, and I shoot in colour only when my assignments demand it. I still keep my 120 format E6 film for those 6x9 slides, but if 120 format Scala was easily available, I'd get it. Did I also mention that my 120 format C41 film is on sale in the classifieds?

Clarence
 
bmattock said:
We are all born color-blind, they say:


BIG Cut


Enjoy your colors - I can 'see' most of them, even if I can't identify them - but they just don't mean as much to me as they do to you and most others. I am happy with shades of gray; I get by quite well.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
Click to expand...

Bill, how do you know Picasso didn’t see the world exactly as you do? How do you know it’s not an advantage?
 
Bill gives us a fascinating insight into life without colour. I guess it's natural for him to gravitate towards black and white. The colour of light certainly affects my mood and makes it feel good to be alive. Training myself to see as mono film sees has added to my appreciation of outdoor light and I can now get excited about grey days, deep shade, street lamp illumination, unidirectional light in interiors, and I can at least "previsualise" in infra red!
 
petesaunders@bl said:
Bill gives us a fascinating insight into life without colour.
Click to expand...

Close, but I *do* see colors. I just can't identify some of them that you might have no trouble identifying. Imagine looking at something and thinking to yourself "Oh, I dunno, that might be deep blue or that might be black." Well, that's my world. Green/Red, Blue/Purple, Green/Brown, and so on. Sure, I see 'em. I just couldn't tell you what they are.

And because many colors are close together spectrally, when others see a rainbow, I see a single line of pale yellow with a second line of light blue in the sky. I'd miss it entirely if people didn't point it out to me. I'm like "Yeah, very nice, next."

I guess it's natural for him to gravitate towards black and white.
Click to expand...

Yes, but only because for me, color cannot be trusted. It lies, at least to my eyes. Black and white is just light, shadow, and texture. I can deal with it.

The colour of light certainly affects my mood and makes it feel good to be alive.
Click to expand...

Quite a few people believe in the power of color therapy, and I guess some studies have been done that indicate that some colors produce different moods when used as an interior wall paint than others.

Training myself to see as mono film sees has added to my appreciation of outdoor light and I can now get excited about grey days, deep shade, street lamp illumination, unidirectional light in interiors, and I can at least "previsualise" in infra red!
Click to expand...

Since color vision defects are genetic and sex-linked, more males than females are color-blind (usually red/green). I'm just lucky enough to have gotten a whole bunch of the different forms, rendering me a lot of fun when trying to dress myself. Let's just say I entertain the neighbors if my wife doesn't intercept me first.

I like B&W because nobody ever says "Hey! You got the wrong shade of gray on that lawn, and the sky is a different shade of gray!" I got tired of hearing about my wonky grass and skies way back in grade school and quit coloring in my coloring books.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
bmattock said:
Since color vision defects are genetic and sex-linked, more males than females are color-blind (usually red/green). I'm just lucky enough to have gotten a whole bunch of the different forms, rendering me a lot of fun when trying to dress myself. Let's just say I entertain the neighbors if my wife doesn't intercept me first.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
Click to expand...
If you wore black all the time you might be mistaken for a web designer.

The horror 😉
 
My 2 years as a medical student were a looong time ago but it has to do with rods and cones. One set deals with colour perception and are concentrated exclusively in the centre of the eye. They have a relatively low sensitivity and a "fault" with these leads to colour blindness, predominately red/green. The other set cover the outer part of the eye and are only thinly spaced in the middle. These are much more sensitive but "see" in monochrome. This is why at night you can often see something better if you look off centre and why you can catch movement out of the corner of your eye so much better.

"Total" colour blindness is rare but does exist. More information here http://www.iee.org/Policy/Areas/Health/colourvisiondefects.pdf

Kim

clarence said:
I do not know if this medical condition exists, and it would be helpful if someone could tell me more.

Clarence
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

p.giannakis
Colour Film Photography - Colours fading
2
Replies
21
Views
2K
julio1fer
julio1fer
A
What would you do if you had to start again? - inspired by Harry the K
2 3 4
Replies
62
Views
3K
boojum
boojum
M
A Digital Monochrome Dilemma
2 3 4
Replies
66
Views
7K
Dogman
Dogman
C
Any Love For The D-Lux?
Replies
7
Views
1K
girdwoodINC
girdwoodINC
A
It's getting better all the ti-i-ime –or is it?
2 3
Replies
41
Views
4K
AndyCapp
A
Back
Top Bottom